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Monday, May 2, 2016

At this stage of the game, post-apocalyptic zombie movies
are a tough sell. And this comes from a guy whose entire left arm is taken up
with a tattoo of the undead swarming the city of Seattle, so you know I have a
love for this particular subset of films. For every great offering, there is a
sea of absolute dreck to slog through, but the ones that hit are totally worth
the search—a great zombie movie is a thing of beauty, but the bad ones are some
of the worst garbage I’ve ever witnessed. Having just won the Audience Award at
the Tribeca Film Festival, Here Alone looks like it could
fall into fantastic category. Don’t believe me? Take a look at this new
trailer.

What we see here is creepy, moody, and reminiscent of
The Battery from a couple of years ago, which his a very
good thing. Here Alone (I keep typing Home
Alone) falls into that slot of low-budget indie dramas that just so
happen to use the undead and the end of the world as a backdrop.

Again, though there are many misses in this realm, this one
looks like it has potential. At least from this trailer, there’s an eerie
tension that settles over the whole picture, an ominous aesthetic, and, of
course, the real monsters are the people.

Check out the synopsis for Here Alone
below:

After a terrible virus ravages human civilization, Ann finds
herself living alone in a forest, foraging for supplies, and accompanied only
by a radio that broadcasts a single transmission in French. Few animals even
remain; the only survivors seem to be the roving hordes of infected creatures
with a taste for human flesh. One fateful day, Ann crosses paths with two more
survivors, Chris and Olivia. But after surviving on her own for so long, she
struggles to relate to them and and their desire to settle down and start a new
community. As Ann tells Chris, "Those who stay, die."

Here Alone is directed by Rod Blackhurst,
who is apparently a former ski racer. I guess at some point he decided he
wanted to make movies, and though he has a ton of shorts on his resume, this is
his first feature.

There’s no word on when Here Alone will
see a release—I have my fingers crossed it will show up at the Seattle International Film Festival in a few weeks—but I’ll keep you up on any news I
hear on that front.